The Data Center Backlash Is Just a New Moral Panic

AI is coming. Do we want America to take the lead—or China? Turn any article into a podcast. Upgrade now to start listening. Members can share articles with friends & family to bypass the paywall. Don’t look now, but we seem to have a moral panic on our hands. The term moral panic, at least as a social science concept, is relatively modern. It was coined by Stanley Cohen in the 1972 book Folk Devils and Moral Panics. Moral panics emerge when large numbers of people start to freak out about something that doesn’t warrant the freak-out. Jonah Goldberg is editor-in-chief and co-founder of The Dispatch, based in Washington, D.C. Prior to that, enormous lizards roamed the Earth. More immediately prior to that, Jonah spent two decades at National Review, where he was a senior editor, among other